Review: Dust On The Breakers – American Reclamation

Dust On The Breakers are essentially an indie supergroup formed by band members from The Czars, d.Biddle, Crooked Fingers and a host of other contributors. Yet what could have easily been a clash of styles or a knocked off record actually ends up as a glorious combination of Americana and post-rock.

The singing is pitch perfect throughout, particularly when the yearning voices of Anna Slade and The Czars’ Jeff Linsenmaier combine, as they do to swelling strings for opener ‘Charred Metropolis’. ‘Frontiers’ is gentler but Slade is still full of melancholic ache, whilst ‘Summer Rainstorms’ is the most melodaramatic offering, as the various collaborators create an epic, cinematic atmosphere to complement the harmonies. There’s also a nice contrast between the two versions of ‘Quiet Please’: in its original form, it’s pulled through an audio wind tunnel but the ‘Redux’ version is the elegant piano-led aftermath after the devastation.

If someone heard this EP without knowing of its background, it would be hard to tell that this group are formed by people better known for being in other acts. Indeed, rather than this being a case of killing time between day jobs, ‘American Reclamation’ is arguably better than the outputs of their parent bands. So please can we have some more?